Time landscapes. Transnational discourses on the past and concepts of the future at the end of the Cold War

Project lead:

• Prof. Dr Claudia Weber (Professorship holder,  European Contemporary History, EUV)
• Dr habil. Thomas Serrier (Université Paris 8 / Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences)
• Mike Plitt, M.A. (Project Coordination, EUV)

Cooperation partners:

• Basil Kerski (Director of the European Centre of Solidarity)

Funding institution:

Deutsch-Polnische Wissenschaftsstiftung

Project duration:

July 2016 - June 2018

Project description:

How did Polish historians perceive the West German Historikerstreit? How many different identities was Jan Karski given in the memory of the Holocaust? And how did intellectuals in East and West agree on the future after the end of the Cold War? The research project "Time Landscapes" examines the cross-border circulation of ideas about the past and the future during the Cold War. Firstly, it asks how the specific historical constellation of this era - the bipolar systemic competition between East and West - influenced historical debates and concepts of the future. The assumption here is that the "history and future workers" were often one and the same actor and that the discourses were also mutually dependent in this respect. Secondly, the project aims to identify the long-term effects, the political and cultural legacies of the Cold War, which characterise present-day processes of understanding about a common European memory and the future of European society. In terms of specific countries, the People's Republic of Poland, the Federal Republic of Germany and France take centre stage. The project is a cooperation between the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder) and the European Solidarity Centre (ECS), Gdańsk.

This third-party funded project was successfully acquired as part of the seed money funding for the project development "Borders in Memories - Borders of Memories. Borders as a European Place of Remembrance".